


before the thunder

by Wildehack (tyleet)



Series: Thor Works [9]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 01:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15985010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyleet/pseuds/Wildehack
Summary: "I hate all of you," Thor said, "very, very much."A soulmate AU.





	before the thunder

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this right after reading "An Ever-Fixed Mark" by AMarguerite for the first time, and it v much shows. Thanks to the author for showing me a new take on the trope <3 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/8523001/chapters/19536781) 
> 
> A ficlet written for psicygni on tumblr. :)

Thor’s soulmark appeared on his eighty-fifth birthday after the third round of drinks with his friends, when he was too startled to remember to cover up his previously naked forearm, and Loki laughed so hard he actually made himself sick.   
  
It was a Valkyrie tattoo.   
  
“You always–-wanted to–-grow up and be a–-” Loki paused to dry heave, over the side of the table, shoulders still spasming with laughter.   
  
“Perhaps it’s metaphorical,” Fandral suggested, with a too-obvious look at Sif, who had revealed that her soulmark had manifested last year, but kept it religiously hidden, no matter how often Fandral asked her about it. “You could merely be fated for a warrior maiden.” 

Sif kicked him under the table. “More likely it’s a temporal mismatch,” she said sharply, her face a blotchy red. “Thor’s soulmate probably died five hundred years ago.”   
  
“That’s a dark way of looking at things,” Volstagg said, and clapped Thor on the shoulder. “Take heart. The king might reinstate the order of the Valkyrie someday.”   
  
“She might not even be born yet,” Hogun said, surprisingly cheerful. He glanced at Sif, then added: “But most likely she’s long dead.”   
  
Loki was still crying laughing.   
  
“I hate all of you,” Thor said, burying his head in his arms, “very, very much.”   
  
*  
  
“You’re a Valkyrie,” Thor said in total shock. “Wait, no, you-–you’re _my soulmate_.”   
  
The Valkyrie gave him an incredulous look. “Sorry, your Majesty,” she said, managing to make the title sound more like an insult than anyone since Tony Stark, “But I’m really not.”   
  
“Holy shit,” Thor said, choosing to ignore this. “I can’t believe it. I wanted to be a Valkyrie when I was a kid, before I knew men weren’t allowed–-which is great, you know, an elite, female fighting force, that’s wonderful, and I totally support it-–and that was way before I got my mark-–I thought all the Valkyrie were dead!”   
  
She finished pouring herself a drink, then walked slowly over to the cage. “Clearly the inbreeding did a number on you, so I’ll repeat myself,” she said, carefully enunciating each word. “Not. Your fucking. Soulmate.”   
  
“Prove it,” Thor said instantly, stepping close enough to the bars to get zapped again. “What’s your soulmark? Is it perhaps a hammer? A bolt of lightning?”  
  
She raised her right hand, and for a second he thought she was going to unstrap the cuff covering her wrist.   
  
Then she pressed the trigger in her hand, and Thor fell backwards into the clutches of foul hair-cutting maniacs.   
  
*   
  
“You’re a Valkyrie,” Loki said, shocked. He laughed, breathless from the fight. “I thought the Valkyrie all died gruesome deaths.”   
  
“Choose your next words wisely,” she hissed, and blocked him when he grabbed for her other wrist. Unfortunately this meant she missed his next advance, and then she was back in the valley with her sisters and Lyn at her side, Hela laughing before her.   
  
* 

“Hela killed my soulmate,” Valkyrie said brusquely to Thor, in the safety of her chamber, with his brother tied up and Banner looking doubtfully between them. “My true match. Along with the rest of my sisters. That’s why I came here to die.” She gives a little half-shrug. “But if I’m gonna die, I may as well take that hag out with me.”   
  
Lyn had borne her name, plain as day, curling elegantly over her pale wrist. No one had called her by her name since Lyn died. Valkyrie unbuckled her vambrace, showed Thor the word  _Lyn_ , blunt and implacable, just beneath her left palm.   
  
“I am sorry for what you’ve lost,” Thor said, gripping her arm. He almost glowed with determination. “I promise you, we’ll make Hela pay for it.”   
  
Loki made a disgusted noise.  
  
“Should we gag him?” Valkyrie asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’d really like to gag him.” 

*  
  
“What is it you’re the god of, again?”   
  
*  
  
Thor consoled himself, after the battles that followed, that Valkyrie really wasn’t a better match than any of the people he’d loved in his life. She was as brave as Sif, to be sure, but Sif had been kinder. She was funny, but Fandral had been funnier. Hogun nearly as good a warrior. Jane was much cleverer. She was as much a drunk as Volstagg had been a glutton. She was nearly as shiftless as Loki–but like Loki, she possessed that hidden streak of loyalty, that bedrock core which no one believed he should trust but that Thor knew he could trust with his life. So she was brave and beautiful–oh, god, she was beautiful–and funny and deadly and really Thor didn’t _require_ cleverness in a person–look at the Hulk!–and to be totally honest Valkyrie’s throat working as she emptied an entire jug of Xandarian ale was something to see, and she was loyal and true, and she had really wonderful clear dark eyes, and. Thor was possibly a little infatuated, but no matter. She had made her feelings perfectly clear.   
  
“Oh, shut up about it,” Valkyrie said, shoving Thor against a bulkhead, a hungry look on her face. “We’re not soulmates, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun.”   
  
“Right,” Thor said breathlessly. “Exactly right.”   
  
*  
  
A month or so after Thor had thoroughly resigned himself to the reality that his soulmate was almost definitely dead, and was prepared to live quite happily with Valkyrie as his second in command with benefits, Loki found him staring out the viewscreen at the stars.   
  
“Did you know,” Loki said conversationally, “That on Midgard,  _lyn_  is Norwegian for lightning?”   
  
Thor stared at him.   
  
Loki clapped him on the shoulder, then walked away. 


End file.
